Evening Brief: October 30, 2012

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Evening.

Is anyone ready for this? The Harper government’s pension reform bill is meeting with resistance in the Red Chamber: the senators, it seems, are not happy.

Pierrette Ringuette, a Liberal senator, told a committee hearing today senators will be the “big losers” in the bill, because they pay more into their pensions for longer on average than MPs. Quebec senator Pierre De Bané said he was “irritated” that parliamentarians were now going to contribute the same as bureaucrats who work 37 hours a week, while parliamentarians work “perhaps 100 hours a week.”

Ordinarily such a reaction from the Senate would be political catnip for the prime minister — were it not for the fact that the Liberal caucus in the Commons agreed to the bill without a murmur.

Meanwhile, if the tough-on-crime Conservatives need a new target, Ontario’s securities regulator has a suggestion: securities fraudsters. Howard Wetston says the province’s penalties for the white collar crimes are too soft to deter repeat-offenders.

Quebec’s anti-corruption probe keeps reaching higher into the rafters of the province’s political structure — but will its reach exceed its grasp? On Tuesday, the Charbonneau commission heard from witness Martin Dumont, a former organizer for Montreal Mayor Gerald Tremblay’s party. He said Tremblay knew about illegal fundraising at city hall — despite stating he wanted to know nothing about an off-the-books fundraising campaign when it came up during a 2004 meeting. Tremblay has angrily denied the accusations.

Speaking of the China deal, does anyone remember the free trade debates? These days, trade activists have to go to much greater lengths to get an argument started. Today two activist groups presented the Commons with a 60,000-name petition protesting the Canada-China Foreign Investment Protection Agreement, which could come into force as early as Friday. They got Green Party leader Elizabeth May’s attention: “This government has chosen to take (a) clearly dangerous … investment treaty … and has chosen to make (it) virtually secret.”

Michelle Zilio reports that environmentalists are putting the bite on the Department of Fisheries and Oceans for its refusal to ban harvests of the porbeagle shark, a Canadian cousin of the Great White. They’re gonna need a bigger boat …

And the news elsewhere:

Death toll rises as U.S. authorities struggle with unfolding disaster.